My cats are ALWAYS hungry!!

grandlinegirl

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I've posted before about wanting to transition my cats to an all wet food diet. I've accomplished that! Both my kitties eat their wet food all up... but they always seem to be hungry and I feel like I'm starving them. My mom is always making comments about how hungry they are and how I need to go back to the dry/wet food combo.

I don't have weights on my cats as they won't let me weigh them. My male is about 2 and I want to say he's somewhere around 10 lbs. My female is about 1.5 and she's lighter. Maybe 6 or 7 lbs. They're eating Fancy Feast classic pate's. That's all I can get them to eat. This is what their feeding schedule:

6am - Split one 3oz can

10-11am - Split one 3oz can

4-5pm - Split one 3oz can

9-10pm - Each get one 3oz can

My cats like to nibble. I've done a lot of experimenting with food amounts and this is what works best for them. During the day they won't eat more than half a can each and the full can keeps them going through the night because that's when they like to play.

What makes me think they're always hungry? They're always crying for food and they never did that when they ate the dry/wet food mix. If I get up from where I sit, they run to the kitchen for food. If I'm trying to cook, they pester me constantly for food. Nobody can go anywhere near the kitchen without the cats jumping up on the table and begging for food and that NEVER happened before with the wet/dry food mix.

Are they hungry or are they just trying to get more wet food? They really do seem like they're starving. Like I said before, they never acted like this before the switch to an all wet food diet and I'm starting to doubt it.
 

LTS3

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The general rule is 20 to 25 calories per pound of ideal body weight daily. Your 10 pound male may need roughly 200 to 250 calories daily and your 6 pound female may need roughly 120 to 15 calories daily. This is my thought. Your cats may actually need more or less calories.

The Fancy Feast pates are under 100 calories per can if you look at these charts:

http://www.petobesityprevention.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Cat_Canned_Pouch_Foods.pdf

http://catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf

From your feeding schedule it looks like each cat is getting about two and a half cans of Fancy Feast a day. That's around 220 calories daily (give or take a few depending on the flavor) which should be plenty for each cat. But if the cats are constantly screaming for more food, something that they didn't do while on the dry / canned mix, then they just might not be getting enough calories. Dry food are pretty calorie dense so the cats were probably happy on the dry / canned mix. Try feeding more canned food for a week or so and see if that curbs the screaming. If not, then maybe they just want attention.

Or try including a higher quality brand of canned food into the cats' diet. Higher quality foods tend to me more filling. What brands of canned foods have you tried in the past?
 

molly92

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The best way to tell if they actually need more calories or if they're just not used to not having dry food to snack on is to weigh them regularly, like daily or every other day. If you have a scale that's sensitive enough,  you can place it in front of their bowls before they eat so they stand on top of it, and you can read the what the scale says then. Or, you can pick them up and stand on the scale, then subtract your own weight. If their weight starts to go down, that means you need to up their food, but if everything stays the same, you know you're feeding them the right amount. How much a cat needs to eat varies wildly depending on the cat, and cats can be VERY persistent when they feel like there's something they're not getting that they expect, so it's going to be really hard to tell if they need more food or not without weighing them.

Because they're so small, a human scale might not catch fluctuations in their weight very well, and it sounds like a baby scale is going to be difficult to train them to lay down on. What I did with my cat is buy a kitchen scale that goes can read up to 15 lbs, and I constructed a larger platform big enough for her to stand on made out of a plastic bin that I superglued on top of the scale and tared it. Then I use Purebites salmon or Vital Essentials minnows treats (this is the only time she gets fish, so it's very tempting!) to lure her onto the scale. Now she hops right in whenever I pull the scale out because she knows she's getting a special snack.

If it is just a case of them missing their dry food, you're going to have to stay strong and ignore them to the best of your abilities! It will be a battle of wills, but eventually they will get used to it and give up.
 
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grandlinegirl

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I have honestly tried every brand of cat food in the local pet stores. I've tried all the tricks. Mixing the FF into it, adding a little bit of water, heating it up a little, using toppers... They will not eat anything but FF.

My only issue with trying to feed more is the cost (everything is more expensive in Canada). I'm already spending $30-$35 every 2 weeks to feed them now. My hours at work just got cut down to 16-20 per week and I'm just managing with that cost. I guess I'll give it a try and see if it helps.

Thanks very much :)
 
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grandlinegirl

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I don't think it's them missing dry food. They've been off it for a while now. I don't have a great scale but they're scared of it. I don't want to invest in a more expensive one (money is so tight right now) only to have them be afraid of it, too. I do have a small kitchen scale but I use it for my snakes and that's what they associate it with so they don't like going near it either, lol.
 
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